Inaugural Ceremony Archive
Margaret Venecek Johnson '84
President, Alumnae and Alumni of Vassar College, and Trustee, Vassar College
President Hill, it's my honor to bring you greetings and good wishes from Vassar's more than 35,000 alumnae and alumni, and it's my challenge today and in the coming years to introduce us to you.
As I was casting around for some inspiration, it should surprise no one that my first instinct was to go to the source. I read a paper entitled "Information for Persons Interested in the Position of President, Vassar College." Not the catchiest title around, but informative nonetheless.
As the president of the alumnae/i association, I was pleased to note that the alumnae/i are featured prominently in this document; on the first page, in fact. I quote, "Vassar graduates have long been recognized as a 'breed apart' for (their) independence of thought and their inclination to 'go to the source' in search of answers." Or, in my case, material for inaugural remarks.
By way of introduction, let's address this "breed apart" notion. As a group, I would say that we really like this; it's pretty flattering. But who exactly are we, as we greet you today? We are women and men. We are from the class of 1922 all the way to the class of 2006. We reside in every state, and we are citizens of the world. We are astronomers and artists. We own corporations and corner stores. We are scientists doing research that will change the world, and we are the only doctors in some small towns. We hold office, and we hold children. Each of us is the product of an education that encouraged us to express our individuality, to explore and honor differences, to recognize and strive for excellence, and to question, always question, the orthodoxy, the pat answer, the status quo.
So, we are a diverse group of individual thinkers with real differences who question everything. What could possibly unite us?
Of course, it's Vassar.
Vassar is our common cause, and our touchstone. We are the college's institutional memory, and its permanent constituency. We come back to Vassar to reacquaint ourselves with our classmates, and with the core ideals that spoke so strongly to us as 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds. We seek each other out where we live now, to reconnect with the spirit of a community that we love and value. This has been particularly true in the past few years. In the aftermath of both September 11th and Hurricane Katrina, we turned once again to Vassar, which provided us with a place, virtually and literally, to check in, share news, find friends; to reconnect with something we recognized as enduring during days that seemed almost unendurable.
As I said at the outset, I represent 35,000 alumnae and alumni. Among our numbers here today is Maisrie McCracken, class of 1931, and the daughter of Vassar's fifth president, Henry Noble McCracken. I would like to invite Maisrie and all the other alumnae and alumni present today to stand now: club and class representatives, current and former AAVC board members, Vassar trustees, and everyone else who arrived as freshmen at Main Gate. President Hill, these are some of the women and men who have, over the years, inspired me to do better: to think more deeply, to work just a little harder, and to be a more passionate advocate for the things I believe in. It's my wish that, in the coming years, they will do the same for you.